Working Groups

Working Group 1

Ensure scientific quality of Citizen Science

This working group will focus on the outcomes of CS projects for scientists. The objective of this WG is to provide a sound understanding of current practices involving the collection, description, and validation of data gathered and analyzed by citizens.

Working Group 2

Develop synergies with education

This group will focus on the learning outcomes of CS projects. The objective of this WG is to increase awareness about the possibilities of CS in education, by collating the knowledge of current practices and underscoring the meaning of CS in formal and informal education.

Working Group 3

Improve society-science-policy interface

The working group will focus on the outcomes of CS projects for policy makers at local, national, and European level concerned with policies impacting the environment and society. The objective of this WG is to make government officials and decision makers aware of CS by providing evidence and guidance material, so that they can use it as part of policy formation, implementation and evaluation.

Working Group 4

Enhance the role of CS for civil society

WG4 ‘Enhance the role of CS for civil society’ focuses on issues that are relevant to the volunteers in citizen science. The objectives of this working group are to raise awareness of the volunteers’ aims, needs and requirements from citizen science and the results that citizen science contributions have in their lives, as well as the implications for developing social innovation interventions. Due to the complexity and the importance of this WG there are several themes that currently we use to promote collaboration, exchange and share of knowledge within this COST action. We call these subgroups and include (but not limited to):

Approaches to investigation and identification of ‘volunteers’

The role of volunteers in the design and use of citizen science technologies

Volunteers’ motivations

Degrees of public participation in scientific research, outputs and outcomes.

If you are interested in any of the listed themes, or you want to propose a new one, please contact Artemis Skarlatidou or Loreta Tauginiene to find out more information.

Working Group 5

Improve data standardization and interoperability

This working group will focus on improving the technical foundations to foster the impact of CS globally. The objective of this WG is to develop metadata-concepts vocabulary and an ontology to support data sharing among CS projects. WG5 will coordinate with activities on data and service interoperability carried out in Europe, the USA and Australia, and will take into account existing standards, namely Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards, ISO/TC 211, W3C standards (semantic sensor network/Linked Data), and existing GEO/GEOSS semantic interoperability.